Garlic’s Amazing Benefits

How would you like to lower your cholesterol, boost your immune system, stop herpes in it’s tracks and prevent cancer all with one supplement? These are actually just a few of the scientifically shown benefits of garlic. Garlic or “Allium Sativum” has been used for 5,000 years to treat many ailments of the human body in ancient Greece, India, China, Egypt and medieval and Renaissance Europe

Dr. Peter Josling published a paper in 2001 on the benefits of a compound in Garlic known as allicillin and the common cold. The group that took garlic every day only had 24 colds over a 12-week period versus the placebo group which had 65 colds. In addition, the placebo group had symptoms for 5 days versus the garlic group which only had symptoms for 1.5 days. Dr. Josling also reported a case regarding MRSA or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus which is a difficult to kill problematic bacteria. The patient had MRSA-infected spinal surgical wounds that had not healed for years despite oral, topical and intravenous antibiotics. Amazingly, allicillin was used in combination orally and topically which completely eradicated the MRSA and healing the wounds.

Garlic has been shown to inhibit cholesterol formation and inhibit platelets from sticking together making it a viable option to aspirin. Many papers have been published on the antibacterial and antifungal properties of garlic. Naganawa et al., found that the compound known as ajoene found in garlic inhibited the growth of many different strains of bacteria including staph, strep, Klebsiella, E. coli and the ulcer-causing Helicobacter pylori. Yoshida et al showed that ajoene was effective at eradicating the troublesome Candida albicans known to cause many yeast-related overgrowth symptoms.

A study published in 2000 in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that ajoene was actually more effective than the prescription terbinafine in the treatment of the fungus tinea pedis (athlete’s foot), tinea cruris (jock itch) and tinea corporis (ringworm).

Ajoene was tested against multiple viruses including herpes simplex types 1 and 2, parainfulenza virus type 3 (common cause of the flu), and the human rhinovirus type 2 (virus that causes the common cold). Ajoene proved to have direct virucidal (anti-viral) activity against all viruses tested. Ajoene was also shown to prevent cell gene mutations that can potentially lead to cancer cell formation.

Not all garlic supplements are created equal however. If you see “allicin potential” or “allicin yield” then you must be skeptical of it’s actual effects the body. Lawson and Wang studied 23 garlic supplements in 2001 and found that 20 out of the 23 failed to release their allicin potential. Look for the name “Garlicillin” which is standardized to contain 1% ajoene from natural allicin. Eating fresh garlic that is crushed or cut up and cooked will definitely give you many of the health benefits we have discussed. But if you would like to use it in the acute stages of the conditions outlined above try taking a high-quality garlic supplement to get immediate therapeutic effect.